Federal Labor will create a new $1.5 billion medical manufacturing fund, if given the keys to government next week, aiming to turn science into jobs and ensure Australians have access to medicines and vaccines when they need them.
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The new fund will be drawn from the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund that Labor wants to establish with a mandate to fund projects to return jobs and investment to Australian industries, including advanced technologies, advanced manufacturing and value add in resources.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese will make the pledge to support sovereign medical manufacturing on Tuesday while campaigning in Western Australia, saying Australia can be a country that makes things again.
"A country that takes its pandemic preparedness seriously would have ensured that we made more rapid tests and vaccines here," Mr Albanese said.
"Serious countries should make things. Serious countries should be led by builders, not bulldozers, which is how I would lead a future Labor government."
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Among the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic for the party was the security of domestic supply chains when it comes to medical technology and vaccine production.
Vulnerabilities in those supply chains were not being tackled by the Coalition, Mr Albanese warned, noting the failure to order enough vaccines and rapid antigen tests. That extended to 346 other current or anticipated shortages of medicines designed to treat life threatening infections, heart attacks, blood clots or epilepsy.
Richard Marles, Labor's employment spokesman, said the pandemic has made clear that Australia doesn't make things like it did nine years ago.
"The Medical Manufacturing Fund is a critical part of Labor's agenda to try and do better at turning science into jobs by playing to our national strengths in medical manufacturing."
Ed Husic, Labor's industry and innovation spokesman, said Australian firms stand ready to manufacture essential medical supplies, if they have a government who'll back them.
"We once had a proud heritage of medical manufacture in this country that has been undermined by a Coalition government that often refuses to work with or back with local firms. There was no stronger proof of this when it became easier to buy an Australian-made rapid test in the US and parts of Europe than it was in the very country they're made."
The Morrison government earlier this year signed a deal with Moderna to establish a domestic mRNA manufacturing site in Melbourne. The Prime Minister claimed it will produce up to 100 million mRNA doses each year and create hundreds of manufacturing jobs.
The Coalition also promised to drop the price of Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme prescription medicines by $10 in its major health policy for the 2022 election campaign.
Labor then matched the Coalition policy and went further, promising to drop the cost of each script on the PBS by $12.50, leading to accusations from senior Liberal figures that Labor was simply copying Coalition policies.
Harley Dennett
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
